1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of managing moderated forums on the Internet and/or the world wide web (WWW), and in particular, to a method providing for anonymous, but moderator-traceable contributions to such moderated forums.
2. Glossary of Terms and Trademark Notices
An administrator is a person who sets up and maintains forums.
Asynchronous refers to an event or sequence of events which do not occur in real time.
An authenticated user is an Internet discussion forum participant or contributor whose identity has been verified by entry of a password, which was previously assigned when the user was registered for the discussion forum.
A forum is an asynchronous Internet discussion.
A moderator is a subject-matter expert appointed to monitor the messages being posted to a particular forum.
A moderated forum is a forum for which the publication of messages is dependent on a moderator.
A newsgroup is a synonym for forum which is usually used to describe discussions found in the USENET portion of the Internet hierarchy.
To publish or post a forum message is to have the message included in a forum.
Registration is the process of assigning a user identification (userID) and password to a new user of a particular Internet service after the user has supplied the necessary information, for example name, e-mail address and the like. Users are either registered automatically by a program set up to handle such requests, or by the service administrator manually adding their information to the user database for the service.
HealthVillage and Lotus Notes Domino are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation. WebBoard is a registered trademark of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Netscape and Netscape Navigator are registered trademarks of Netscape Communications.
3. Description of Related Art
Asynchronous discussions have long been in existence on the Internet, particularly implemented in the newsgroups found within the USENET hierarchy. Newsgroups tend to focus on a particular area of interest (for example, rec.music.beatles is a newsgroup in the recreation section of the USENET hierarchy for music fans of the Beatles). Participants in these Internet newsgroups submit messages to the newsgroup, as new topics for discussion (for example, "I think the White Album is brilliant!"), as responses to previously submitted topics (for example, "I agree with you!") or as responses to responses (for example, "Me too!").
USENET newsgroups are meant to be a free benefit to the Internet community, so access to USENET newsgroups is open to any Internet user. Accordingly, no user registration takes place prior to participation. This openness can be detrimental to these newsgroups, however, as mischievous or inconsiderate users can deluge newsgroups with messages inappropriate due to language, subject matter, purpose and the like. While USENET newsgroups have general and group-specific rules for participation, enforcement of these rules is difficult since the lack of authentication of participants allows problem users to falsify logon names and e-mail address information at any time. Certain designated USENET newsgroups are actually moderated, that is, messages are read and approved by a moderator prior to being posted to the newsgroup. A moderator's job can be made much more difficult by an unknown participant repeatedly submitting inappropriate messages to such a newsgroup.
Forums for registered participants, such as those offered by Internet-based services, for example a Web site for Lotus Notes support, have fewer problems with users failing to observe the rules, since "repeat offenders" can always have their registrations revoked by the forum's administrator. These types of discussions usually require authentication of users, contributors or participants, these terms being used herein interchangeably, if not for reading the forum's messages, then certainly for composing messages to submit to the forum. Once authenticated, the contributor's identity is known to the system and appears on every message submitted by this contributor, so anonymous posting is precluded by this scheme. As useful as this might be to the forum moderators and administrators, it could prove to be a damper for discussions on sensitive topics (for example, substance abuse and AIDS), where a contributor may wish for anonymity for legitimate reasons of privacy, as opposed to providing a cover for causing mischief.
In a moderated forum package such as O'Reilly's WebBoard application anonymity is possible for such a discussion newsgroup by employing a false userID, but this renders the user untraceable to the moderator of such a group. WebBoard therefore allows for anonymous authors, or contributors, but moderators of these forums are unable to trace anonymous problem-users.
The problem therefore is how to balance the legitimate need some contributors can have for anonymity with the moderators' need to be able to carry out their duties and maintain order in a particular forum. There is a long-felt, but unsatisfied need for a methodology for Internet forum contributors to post messages to a moderated forum in such a way that the identity of the forum contributor is hidden from readers of the anonymous contributor's messages, but at the same time, is known to the moderator.